O'Brien as a head coach in the NFL is average, at best. But he is improving.

He ranks high in leadership, is elite at getting his players to ignore the outside noise and focus on the task at hand, and superb (except for the 2017 collapse) at keeping his team from falling into helpless ruts.

What O'Brien isn't good at is maintaining his composure during games. He is too emotional, too reactive, and tends to panic and lose faith in himself and his players.

He is the only coach in NFL history to bench one starting quarterback at halftime of the first game of the season and another after the third quarter of the first game of a season.

What kind of thought process would lead one to make such drastic changes, as if the entire offseason, training camp and preseason didn't matter?

Those football coaches don't often win championships. They can if their team is so dominant that it doesn't face in-game adversity, doesn't run into an early deficit, or is never challenged by a team that showed up ready to play on a certain day.

Saturday, the Texans ran into all of the above. Early on, the Colts looked capable of blowing them off the field.

Indianapolis drove down the field twice for touchdowns, while the Texans ran three plays without getting a first down.

That 14-0 score was far from ideal, but that shouldn't have been the time to panic. It was for O'Brien.

"That just changes your whole offensive game plan," O'Brien said. "You're almost in somewhat of a two-minute mode at that point in time, because you got to play catch-up."

Change your whole offensive game plan in the first quarter after running just three plays? What smart coach would do that?

Instead of settling his team down by telling them they are still capable of doing what they planned to do all week, O'Brien junked that and went into desperation mode.

By game's end, desperation mode got the Texans a measly seven points. Meanwhile, the Colts scored only seven more points the rest of the game, too.

Sure, the Colts probably could have scored more were it necessary, but we'll never know because O'Brien had his quarterback throwing the ball all over the field because he freaked out.

By the end of the game, Deshaun Watson had thrown 49 passes, and handed it to his running backs just eight times. Incredible.

Those are bad numbers almost any time, but especially in a game in which your opponent scored only 21 points.

This wasn't a shootout. It just looked like it might become one after the Colts' first two drives.

As he did when he benched Brian Hoyer and Tom Savage in regular-season openers, O'Brien pushed the panic button quickly.

He needs somebody on the staff to hold onto the panic button briefcase to ensure it is only pushed in actual emergencies.

When asked about how he evaluates himself, O'Brien said he trusts some of his assistant coaches to be honest with him.

One of them needs to tell him the Texans would be better served if he handed play-calling duties to someone else, so he can focus on the game's big picture. He made fewer game- and clock-management mistakes this year than in the past, but still too many.

It would also be better if O'Brien brought in an offensive coordinator with fresh ideas, so what he knows and believes can be challenged, and result in a better, more innovative approach.

Innovation isn't as important as production, of course, but O'Brien should be open to whatever it takes to improve.

I don't care what you've heard, but O'Brien isn't an offensive genius.

O'Brien's teams have scored zero and seven points in home wild-card playoff games. That has happened just nine times since 1990, when the NFL went to the 12-team playoff format.

O'Brien is the only coach to do it twice, and one of just two whose team was shut out in a home wild-card game.

Yes, the Texans need better offensive linemen, help in the secondary, and an upgrade at wide receiver, but if a championship is the goal, they need O'Brien to admit he needs help.

"It does start with me," O'Brien said. "I realize that. I think that there were things that we did very well this year, but there were things that we have to get better at and I have to get better at, so I'm going to work hard to do that."

Jerome grew up in downtown Acres Homes, Texas. He is a proud graduate of Mabel B. Wesley Elementary and was a basketball team captain at Waltrip High School, where he helped the Mighty Rams to a near-.500 record.

A math genius and engineering major in college, he's still working on this writing thing. He says that the three years he spent as an F.M. Black Panther probably played a more significant a role in the man he would become than the time he spent in college.